How to Discover Great Ideas

By Lawrence Yeo
How to Discover Great Ideas
“Where do you get your ideas?”

This is something I’m curious about for other writers, but oddly enough, when I’m
asked that myself, I have to think about it a bit.

So let’s explore the process of idea discovery together.

This brief eBook will be an exploration into where great ideas come from, and how we
can cultivate them. There is no shortage of interesting ideas out there; it’s all about
knowing where exactly to look.

These are the five pillars I will touch upon in this journey:

(1) Identify your interests

(2) Ask “why” or “how”

(3) Use one-way transmissions

(4) Incorporate feedback loops

(5) Use personal experience

Let’s delve into each one.

(1) Identify Your Interests

Ideas are the manifestations of your personal tastes.

If you survey all the ideas you find compelling, there’s a single common thread that
weaves through them all:

You find them all interesting.

This may sound obvious, but this really is the North Star to guide you through the
process of idea discovery. Everything starts with the fact that you are interested in a
certain broad topic. Only then can you go through the next pillars to unearth a specific
idea you want to delve into further.

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Identifying your interests is the first big filter you’ll put up to narrow down your search.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to identifying a compelling idea is the sheer amount of
possible ideas to choose from.

Selecting an interest is the best way to begin funneling them down.

For example, every idea that comes to me for More To That has been passed down
through the filter of my personal interests. Philosophy, psychology, and creativity are
three prominent ones I use on a regular basis.

For you, it could be something as broad as “science” or something that as narrow as

“goat farming.” This may sound like too simple of an exercise to do, but one way to
get ideas flowing is to remind yourself of what interests you.

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Once you do that, then we can start asking questions to get to something more
concrete.

(2) Ask “why” or “how”

These two words drive the nature of curiosity. All of humanity’s progress – whether
moral or technological – has been driven by multiple iterations of these three-letter
words.

The same applies at the individual level as well.

Once you’ve identified your interests, it’s time to narrow them down a bit with these
two questions.

Let’s take one of my big interest funnels, philosophy:

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The next question I can ask here is:

“Why does philosophy interest me?”

Well, it’s because I like understanding what leads to human flourishing, and what
doesn’t.

“How do humans flourish?”

Well, there’s a number of ways, but one important one has to do with freedom.
Freedom to do the things people want to do, and to work on the things they want to
work on.

“How do people achieve this freedom?”

One way people do it is through money. By making enough money, they are buying
themselves the freedom that is required for happiness.

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“If money buys freedom, why is that not enough for people?”

Well, that’s a great question. Here’s a 7,500-word response to that.

As you can see, by just asking “how” and “why” through each step of the process, I
can get to an idea that I want to delve into further. By using those two powerful words,
I can eventually arrive at a place where I need to think through things in more detail to
answer those questions.

Go deeper into your interests by consistently using “why” and “how.” The more you
ask them, the more you’ll see how much is out there to interact with.

(3) Use one-way transmissions

These transmissions are sources of information that are broadcasted or distributed to

you in one direction.

Here are some common examples:

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These are good ways to absorb information from any one source, but you can’t
necessarily interact with them. Sure, you can leave reviews or comments, but that’s not
a good surrogate for actually engaging in conversation with the broadcaster.

One-way transmissions are meant for you to digest that information, and then decide
what to do with it yourself.

A great quote from a book can lead to a torrent of thoughts. An insight from a podcast
can make you pause and reflect. A recent event may link back to a thought you had
about history.

One-way transmissions are a form of intentional learning. You are opening up your
mind to absorb what the educator has to offer, and seeing how that may interact with
your own worldview.

The beauty of today’s world is that you can learn more about whatever piques your
interest. Information is abundant, but on the flip side, you have to be diligent in
cultivating that desire to learn. The great paradox of information abundance is that it
makes curiosity scarce. It’s too easy to Google your way to an answer, and be satisfied
with whatever result lands on the first page of search results.

The deeper you are willing to go, the better the quality of the transmissions you
receive. You rely less on social media for your information, and look more toward
timeless wisdom instead. Instead of taking that one podcast guest’s thoughts as
gospel, you put on your thinking cap and do the research yourself.

It is here where you’ll uncover some fantastic ideas, and will have much more to
expand upon. And as you do that, you’ll be able to play with these ideas and
communicate them to others in turn.

(4) Incorporate feedback loops

Feedback comes in two primary forms.

The foremost (and timeless) form of feedback is synchronous: where you’re bouncing
ideas back and forth in real-time with someone else. This is the method of
communication we’ve used for the majority of human history, and is a powerful method
of discovering ideas.

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Real-time communication is wonderful because you’re allowing the ideas sitting in your
mind to interact with the ideas of another person. As they are exchanged back and
forth, they have the ability to merge with one another at certain points, or clash in
other cases. Regardless, this back and forth dynamic is a breeding ground for perhaps
the greatest form of idea generation:

Epiphanies.

When you have an “a-ha” moment, you can’t wait to spread that idea out to others. To
have an epiphany is to interact with the frontiers of your mind, of knowing that you are
expanding it further into a previously untouched realm. A lot of the time, this happens
because someone else has already traversed that realm, and are sharing their ideas
with you in a way that you can resonate with. This is what real-time communication
helps to foster.

The other form of feedback loop is asynchronous: where ideas are communicated in a
staggered fashion. This is the world of text messaging and social media, where
feedback loops are rarely occurring in real-time. The broadcaster puts something up,
and that piece of content is engaged with at various parts of the day by various kinds
of people.

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The most relevant personal example of this is More To That. More To That is the
platform I’ve built to distribute ideas, which then brings in the thoughts and opinions of
readers in turn. Through this feedback loop, more ideas have the chance of emerging
as well.

But most importantly, being a content creator in this asynchronous feedback loop is a
great way to discover new ideas. As I outlined in this post on writing, a big part of
why I write is because it reminds me of the type of person I’m capable of being. Much
of that is the result of the process of writing itself. Through writing, you play with all the
ideas you have in your head, piecing them together and trying to construct them in an
entirely unique way.

Being the start of a feedback loop is probably the best way to come across ideas on a
regular basis. Creating content requires you to open your mind up to all kinds of
things, and that only serves to accelerate the discovery of ideas that will excite you.

And sometimes, the best pieces of content will come out of the things you’ve
experienced yourself.

(5) Use personal experience

This is probably the most underrated pillar in the process of idea discovery.

A lot of the time, we look for outside opinions to validate our ideas. We look for quotes
to justify our thoughts. We want peer-reviewed research papers to hold up our thesis.
We search through our Kindle highlights for something to back up our point.

If you have a compelling personal experience, forget about all that stuff.

Just tell your story.

The ideas you’ve generated simply by living your life is the greatest treasure trove you
can draw from. On top of that, people resonate with personal stories. Knowing that this
story came from your own lived experience creates a special connection that is difficult
to replicate in any other setting.

I draw from personal experience quite often. My analysis on why weddings are
awesome comes from my experience with it. I started off my post on money and
identity with a story about my fear of homelessness. Self-doubt is something I struggle
with a lot, which is why I’ve written extensively about it.

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Sometimes the best ideas are already inside you, waiting for you to tap into. They have
been birthed by the unique set of circumstances, people, and experiences that all
interacted together to form the being you are today.

So if you ever feel like you have nothing to delve into, try reflecting on your life, or
even opening up a journal instead.

We don’t need double-blind psych studies to validate what you know to be true.

Share your story.

So there you have it. These five pillars of idea discovery exist for all of us, and hey, you
may have unearthed even more.

If you have any other mechanisms you’d like to share, feel free to reach out with a
message. You should already be on the More To That email list, but if you aren’t, you
can sign up for it here. It’s the best way to reach me, and the best way for us to have a
feedback loop of our own.

As always, thanks for reading, and I look forward to sharing more ideas with you soon!

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